GOP-come-latelies

When is a Republican not always a Republican? In the cases of these candidates, quite often

August 28, 2011|By Mark Jacob, Tribune reporter

The four GOP presidential candidates who are leading in the latest Gallup poll have something else in common: They haven't always been Republicans.

Rick Perry, now Texas' Republican governor, was a Democratic member of the state House for six years and served as Texas campaign chairman for Al Gore's presidential bid in 1988. But even as a Democrat, he was conservative — so much so that one publication called him the "Benedict Arnold of the Democratic Party" because he frequently sided with Republican Gov. Bill Clements. Perry switched to the GOP in 1989, at age 39, and won statewide office as agriculture commissioner.

Mitt Romney, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts, was a registered independent until age 46, and voted in the 1992 Democratic primary. He said he voted Democratic because a) George H.W. Bush was a cinch in the GOP primary; b) among Democrats, he preferred Paul Tsongas over Bill Clinton; and c) Tsongas was a fellow Massachusettsian. But he said years later that his aim was to "vote for the person who I thought would be the weakest opponent for the Republican." Romney officially joined the GOP in 1993.

Ron Paul, a longtime Republican congressman from Texas, was the Libertarian Party nominee for president in 1988. At the time, Paul said he was a former Ronald Reagan supporter put off by Republican-backed deficit spending. "The radicals and the nuts are in charge, stealing our opportunities and stealing our freedoms, destroying our economy, destroying our money," Paul said. He finished a distant third with about 0.5 percent of the vote.

Michele Bachmann, a Republican member of Congress from Minnesota, once campaigned for Democrat Jimmy Carter. And she had a unique reason for turning Republican: In college, she read liberal Gore Vidal's historical novel "Burr" and objected to the "snotty" way the Founding Fathers were depicted. "And at that point I put the book down and I laughed," she said. "I was riding a train. I looked out the window and I said: 'You know what? I think I must be a Republican. I don't think I'm a Democrat.'"

Some other not-always-Republicans

Rudy Giuliani: Ex-Democrat who backed George McGovern for president in 1972

Condoleezza Rice: A Democrat until her late 20s

Ronald Reagan: Modern saint of Republicanism — and ex-Democrat who voted for FDR all four times

Joseph McCarthy: Like Reagan, an ex-Democrat who backed FDR four times

Abraham Lincoln: Ex-Whig (granted, there was no Republican Party when Ol' Abe got started)

"Long John" Wentworth: Chicago mayor who edited the Chicago Democrat newspaper but turned Republican in 1850s (and like Lincoln, his political start predated the GOP)

And one more, with an asterisk …

Mayor Richard J. Daley: Some might wonder what a Democratic boss like Daley is doing on this list. Well, Hizzoner was a Democrat, but he won his first public office as a Republican write-in candidate for the Illinois House. He soon switched back to the Democrats, of course.